Libby is OverDrive’s app that lets people manage their library ebook lending from the comfort of their phone. As I understand it (my library days are strictly limited to sitting in dusty rooms of chained vellum in Oxford and staggering under the weight of an armful of exciting new reads), Libby connects you to your local library so that the ebooks you borrow through the app are ones that your library has available.
ALLi News Editor Dan Holloway
That context is relevant to the latest announcement from OverDrive. Inspire Me is, in the words of the OverDrive press release, “a new search and discovery experience that supports book discovery within a user’s local library collection.” The unique aspect of this, as opposed to other recommendation tools, is that it will show you books that your local library owns and that are available for borrowing right now.
What OverDrive Promises
OverDrive stresses that Inspire Me enhances the value brought by local librarians as curators because it avoids generic recommendations and focuses instead on books that have been chosen for local communities. How does it do this? It uses AI, of course—or at least that’s what the press release claims. The AI part enables it to “surface titles that align with what readers are searching for.” It does not, OverDrive insists, replace but enhance the work of librarians. It also does not pass on data to AI platforms, and it doesn’t collect any information it doesn’t need, as its policy document makes clear.
Reader and Librarian Concerns
As TechCrunch reports, not all Libby users and librarians are happy with this kind of AI use. For me, this is in many ways indicative of buzzwords gone a little too far. I am not sure quite what Inspire Me does that wouldn’t, a few years ago, simply have been called “an algorithm.” Which might have caused a tut or two but hardly an outrage.
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